Charting a New Course
There has never been a shortage of golfers in Los Angeles, evidenced by the fact that Rancho Park averages well over 100,000 rounds played a year, more than any other course in the country.
Nor is the region lacking for top-tier courses, as Riviera Country Club and L.A. Country Club (North course) are widely considered two of the finest courses anywhere.
Yet, when it comes to building new golf courses to accommodate its rapidly growing number of players, the greater Los Angeles area has come up short. After all, golf requires the two things L.A. notoriously lacks: affordable land and available water.
While Orange County has seen a boom in the development of high-end daily-fee golf courses over the past decade, no new golf courses had been constructed within Los Angeles’ city limits since Westchester Golf Course opened 35 years ago.
Until now.
Several remarkable daily-fee courses have either recently opened or will do so soon. The list includes Cascades Golf Club near the intersection of the Golden State and Foothill freeways, and Lost Canyons, opening this week in Simi Valley.
Sometimes referred to as a “country club for a day,” a daily-fee golf course generally charges $100-$200 a round. It offers resort-like amenities and services, including attendants who greet golfers when they arrive and clean their clubs before they leave, valet parking, 10-minute tee-time intervals for faster rounds, luxurious clubhouses with locker rooms and gourmet dining facilities, Global Position Systems that use satellites and computers to inform golfers in their carts of their exact yardage to the pin, courses designed by prestigious golf-course architects, top-quality practice facilities, a minimal number of unobtrusive home sites, etc. Golfers pay their greens fees, play their games, receive royal treatment, then go home.
Robinson Ranch, located on 400 acres in the Santa Clarita Valley (25 miles north of downtown L.A.) features two daily-fee tracks, the Mountain and Valley courses. Crafted by the father-and-son architectural team of Ted Robinson Sr. and Ted Robinson Jr., the facility sits in the ruggedly relaxed canyon country at the base of the Angeles National Forest.
The senior Robinson, a prolific and internationally acclaimed golf-course architect with many superb Southern California layouts to his credit, has designed 170 courses, including Sahalee Country Club in Redmond, Wash., site of the 1998 PGA Championship.
The courses at Robinson Ranch seem as if they have belonged to the land for years, though both are less than a year old. The courses feature PGA Tour-quality A-4 bent grass greens with velvet-smooth putting surfaces that will astonish golfers.
A longtime Sierra Club member, Ted Robinson Jr. makes sure that Robinson Ranch adheres to strict environmental standards and practices. In fact, Robinson Ranch will soon become California’s first recipient of Audubon International’s “Silver Signature” designation, an honor reserved for courses that display leadership qualities in terms of environmental sensitivity and stewardship.
*
Tierra Rejada Golf Club in Moorpark showcases the work of celebrated architect Robert E. Cupp. His courses have hosted several national championships, including the 1996 U.S. Men’s Amateur at Pumpkin Ridge in Portland, Ore., site of Tiger Woods’ third consecutive Amateur victory. At Tierra Rejada--which opened last December--Cupp combines a painter’s penchant for visual beauty and a poet’s playful instincts. With five sets of tees, the course can play between 4,000 and 7,000 yards, making it suitable for golfers of all skill levels.
The front nine ascends into the Santa Susana Mountains, with fairways meandering through rocky foothills alive with sage and other natural grasses, rock outcroppings and wild flowers. Sharp doglegs, tight landing areas and approach shots to several greens that dangle on cliffs put a heavy demand on precision. Holes 6 through 9 seem to leap over canyons before delivering golfers to well-bunkered greens with undulating putting surfaces. The back nine presents a more levelly landscaped test, and serves as a kind of mellow alter ego to the front nine’s more animated verve.
*
Steve Timm, architect and former head professional at Riviera Country Club, has assisted Cupp on a number of course designs over the last few years. They switched roles in the creation of Cascades Golf Club in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Timm’s first solo design and the first course built inside the L.A. city limits in nearly four decades.
The course takes its name from the southern end of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, with its white-capped rivulets of water rushing to complete the journey from Northern California through cement channels just up and to the right of the course’s third hole.
Golfers may think the 6,536-yardage reading from the back tees at the Cascades means they can really go low on this course. In fact, they might as well toss their scorecards out, as the course’s hypnotic changes in elevation make depending on literal hole distances somewhat specious. Downhill tee shots may carry and roll 50 yards farther than usual, while uphill approach shots to greens may require a longer club by one, two or even three number increments.
*
Pete Dye designed Lost Canyons’ Sky and Shadow courses in Simi Valley with the kind of confident boldness that typifies his work. Lost Canyons opens this week.
To the legions of golfers who have traveled to La Quinta to play Dye’s infamous ball-striking test, the Stadium Course at PGA West, Lost Canyons’ two courses will feel like long-lost siblings. The Sky Course presents breathtaking holes that twist through the peaks and plateaus of the Santa Susanas. The equally challenging Shadow course extends lower in the valley.
PGA Tour star Fred Couples served as architectural consultant on these courses. Dye, using as many as seven sets of tees on individual holes, has accommodated players of all ability levels. To help players enjoy their day to its fullest, Lost Canyons will provide each group with a forecaddie to offer strategy and club-selection assistance.
*
The developers of Ocean Trails Golf Club on the Palos Verdes Peninsula truly understand the meaning of the words perseverance and patience, as, finally, Dye’s seaside wonder is booking tee times. Sixteen years in the planning, Ocean Trails was set to open more than a year ago when the course’s three finishing holes crumpled down toward the sea.
The course is playing with 15 holes of classic links golf with panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. Ocean Trails will hypnotize golfers with its rolling fairways and sloping greens, pot bunkers and rough lined with auburn fescue grass, cactus, wild daisies, lupine and other wildflowers.
A rhythm of long and short holes leads golfers back to a gracious early California-style clubhouse, while a network of new hiking and biking trails allow the public to explore Ocean Trails’ hills and precipitous bluffs. With restorative work well underway, Ocean Trails plans to open its full 18 holes in early spring.
*
Andy Brumer lives in Alhambra and writes on golf and other subjects.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Daily-Fee Golf Course Facts
ROBINSON RANCH: 27734 Sand Canyon Road, Santa Clarita
* Phone: (661) 252-8484; Fax: (661) 253-000
* Green Fees: $85 Monday-Thursday; $115 weekends, holidays.
TIERRA REJADA GOLF COURSE: 5185 Tierra Rejada Rd., Moorpark
* Phone: (805) 531-9300; Fax: (805) 531-9303
* Green Fees: $60 Monday and Tuesday, $75 Wednesday and
Thursday, $90 Friday, $100 weekends and holidays.
THE CASCADES GOLF COURSE: 16325 Silver Oaks Drive, Sylmar
* Phone: (818) 833-8900
* Green Fees: $60 Monday-Friday; $85 weekends and holidays.
LOST CANYONS GOLF CLUB: 4600 1/2 Bennet Road, Simi Valley
* Phone: (805) 522-4653
* Green Fees: $115 Monday-Thursday; $135 Friday-Sunday and holidays.
OCEAN TRAILS GOLF CLUB: One Ocean Trails Drive, Rancho Palos Verdes
* Phone: (310) 265-5525
* Green Fees (presently 15 holes are open for play): All-day play
(unlimited number of holes on availability basis), $165 Monday-Thursday; $215 Friday-Sunday.